Respected Kiwi Anchor, Richard Long
If New Zealand network news was dumbed-down any further, the Medical Council could name a retardation after it. The 5 minutes out of the nightly news hour that isn’t padded out by the weather, V8 motor racing, or commercials, is spun with such ‘down home’ colloquialism, euphemism and mispronunciation, that it reads like cross between Woman’s Day, and an episode of ‘The Wiggles’.
So much so, you could be forgiven for assuming that nothing actually happens in the world. As far as concerns local news, you would be mostly correct.
But is the lack of anything to talk about the real reason Kiwis seem to ‘prefer it dumb’? Surely a story about a sheep who has evaded shearing for two years doesn’t need to be re-digested into even more simple, lay terminology?
Think again. Whether reporting major international breaking news, or local feel-good items, the treatment is the same. Lines are frequently fluffed. Opinions are offered. Stories are peppered with phrases such as ‘a bit of a problem’ and ‘awesome’. And due to an aggressive equal-opportunity hiring policy, at least 30% of all field reporters must have a stutter, a distracting eyelid twitch, or be fluent in modern Kay-Wuy. Preferably all three.
Kiwi news is ‘news in board shorts’. Ever ready to bunk off for the afternoon. “And as the death toll following the Hezbollah bombing of a primary school in Tel Aviv reaches 30 children, this journalist can’t help but wonder…are those really 12 foot swells I see breaking over on Tel Aviv beach?”
Dumb News may just be a harmless by-product of the laid-back, Kiwi lifestyle. After all, don’t people move all the way here to escape just that sort of shit?
However, it is also possible that it is a subtle extension of Tall Poppy Syndrome. Speaking with a voice of authority, using big adjectives, pronouncing the ‘R’ on the end of words, and understanding the subject about which you are reporting… generally leads to only one question in the minds of most Kiwis. “What are you? A bloody show off or something?”
TV3 ‘s marketing campaign, for example, thinks it’s helpful to remind us that their anchors ‘Dont’ just present the news, they get it‘.
Shouldn’t that really go without saying?
e-cigarette review Dumb News | Kiwianarama
Well written and focused on the topic. Cheers
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A few years ago Bob McNeill reporting on the future of the old Mangere Bridge once the new bridge was completed. He finished the story with something along the lines of “some people want the bridge to be pulled down, some want it to stay and some don’t care”. Thanks Bob.
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Y’all unfortunately just described TV news in Richmond Virginia US as well. Apparently its a universal phenomenon. And we probably kill more people in Richmond than all of NZ does. So our idea of sports is the 10 minutes of murder news. And I moved to Richmond feeling perfectly safe after growing up in South Florida US where there are literally places where the police just don’t go and burned inverted cars lay in the streets. West Palm Beach bulldozed three entire miles of beautiful moorish influenced buildings built as your “crap buildings”are … except ours were still standing after 1 to 3 hurricanes every year for about 70 years … bulldozed not because the buildings were bad but because bad people lived in them ! That was my cue to leave West Palm Beach. I have to admit I’m having second thoughts on NZ after reading about an apparent orgy of historic building demolition. Richmond sent almost 2000 buildings into the landfills just in the 1990s alone …
Now that’s news, but it never appeared on TV.
Oh , PS: Hopefully something ELSE that has NOT appeared on NZ TV? I hope? Is the endless eulogies to Micheal Jackson ! Yeesh! I built an independent radio station, I live music and what he’s done, but … really, enough! Tell me y’all do NOT have an endless update on MJ ?
I am amazed no-one here is discussing the 10 minute story I saw on a brief trip to NZ discussing how an elderly couple discovered a Weta in their Tip Top Vanilla ice cream. Talk about compelling and rich.
bro for starters have you seen a weta – they are bloody scary. scary enough to send a young couple to an early grave but this elderly couple have gotten off lightly seeing they are still alive. and secondly it’s tip top that’s the best ice cream man.
You’re just lucky you were here on a brief visit, we have to put up with this shit every day!
Hey, Murray Hewitt! Are you the Murray Hewitt from Flight of the Conchords, or the Murray Hewitt I know in Wellington, or another Murray Hewitt altogether?
Sorry mate I’m neither. Murray Hewitt is just a devastatingly clever pseudonym (that I stole from Flight of the Conchords).
Selwyn Nogood
You are a savior to me, and our country. Sorry but I feel your site is about 5 years too late. Thanks anyway. I have been too sacred to do a website like this, but well done.
I am so amazed how long our news has got away with this. I am surprised how nice you have been, satire is great. Personally I am more angry than you.
Anger will only get you so far.
But flattery will get you everywhere…
**blushes**
Yes, I love what our News has become, continually calling children “Kids” (ie: baby goats) and reporting assualts or attacks as people getting “Bashed”. I’ve also seen an interview where the journalist literally asked “So what do you’s guys think”? Maybe it was “Ewes” and they are obsessed with the farmyard, kids and ewes etc?
What has happened to the Queen’s English and the good old NZBC days?
I think there are a lot of factors you have to take into account here. Firstly, TV news has to appeal to an audience that doesn’t necessarily have a huge appetite for genuine, ‘serious’ news. It’s on at 6PM and is used as the draw card to set up a night of viewing.
Elisha – I think if you were to watch Australian news you would hear a lot of words like ‘bashed’ being used far more than they are here, and moreover, if you were to compare our 7pm current affairs shows to those of Channel 7 and 9 in Australia I think you would agree, although neither shows are perfect, we have it pretty good here in New Zealand.
Naly D has a point that if you are criticizing a news service for dumbing down, you can’t be seen to be getting your facts wrong.
My personal issue with TV news coverage in NZ is that it is becoming more and more editorialized. This is very evident in coverage of politics from both networks political editors.
Thank you everyone for all your comments, but remember, this blog is primarily a work of satire. A caricature. If all my facts were accurate, it’d be a pretty dry read.
It’s nice to stimulate a little debate though, but remember I am to ‘Informative Reporting’ what Viz Magazine is to children’s books.
Check the disclaimer. No, seriously, can someone please check it for me. I wrote it myself, and I really don’t think it would stand up in court.
“Firstly, TV news has to appeal to an audience that doesn’t necessarily have a huge appetite for genuine, ’serious’ news.”
Oh what a crock of crap cop-out!
The silent majority DO have an appetite for genuine serious news, hence he slow drift from the shambles that is TVNZ one network news to the not-so-bad 3 news and Prime news.
TVNZ’s tumble from standards has NOTHING to do with what taxpayers want, it’s all about a shabby little Auckland mate-ocracy of mediocrity scratching each others back in a gravy-train.
Scusemoi, but I’d like to point out that V8 Supercars do not feature on the news as often as your article would suggest.
In fact, the last piece aired on 3News on Sun May 31 and was 1minute 38seconds in duration.
Thank you for your rigorous attention to detail.
I will, as a result, shortly be sacking every member of my 10 strong fact checking team. They only recently arrived here as refugees from war torn Darfur, and are still getting to grips with New Zealand history. But, no, you’re right, this sort of sloppy reporting isn’t good enough.
And so they will all be out of work, on the streets, and, quite possibly, holed up in the hull of a Taiwanese lobster trawler heading for Africa, quicker than you can say Alison Mau (which they can’t, which is yet another reason to sack them).
I trust this outcome is satisfactory to you?
Well, if you’re trying to prove a point about the dumbing down of the NZ media, or your perception of it, fact-checking is probably a good thing to utilise, as has been done here.
Otherwise it just makes you seem like another of the seething masses willing to jump on the bandwagon of those deriding the people presenting the news, without understanding the processes.
Appreciate the pisstake reply though, I’ll be sure to stick around and comment more.
What the hell are you talking about?
The state of NZ broadcasting is bad and is epitomised by the dire standards our newscasts have sunk to.
Get out of the country and observe the standards we’ve slipped from to see what we’re talking about. No bandwagon, it’s the truth.
The only reason I still watch One news is the “spontaneous” “banter” between Simon Fence-post Dallow and Andrew Sav Saville. Dallow’s groaningly awful digs at Saville’s rotundity will eventually end with Saville flinging himself across two desks and throttling the odious twat Dallow on live telly and I for one can’t wait to see it. It’s only a matter of time.
Anyone else notice that NZ is the only country in the world that uses the completely unprofessional term ‘bashed’ to describe an assault… are our news people 14 year old boys hanging out down at the local shopping centre sniffing glue?!
I think I actually heard the 3 News correspondent 2 nights ago, talking live from Charles De Gaulle Airport at the break of the Air France Crash, refer to how aviation authorities would be searching for the black box, checking the flight records…“and all kinds of stuff like that.”
You’re not chatting to your Mum on MSN Messenger, dear. You’re on national TV.
And don’t get me started on Duncan Garner (3 News Political Correspondent). He interjects his live broadcasts with so many nasally intoned ‘Um’s and ‘Aaah’s that it’s impossible to concentrate on what he’s actually saying.
Maybe Duncan Garner is trying to emulate his great hero the Honourable John Key?
He’ll want to start chewing some gum, if he plans on doing it right.
I think it’s got much worse in recent years with this really unprofessional ‘matey’ style of news broadcasting.
Seeing Judy Bailey passing bias into her bulletins’, seeing the meteoric rise of bland (and speech impared) weather forecaster Karen Olsen and witnessing jokey banter between Bernadine Oliver-Kirby and that horrid Tony Veitch (whose annoying voice and twitches are a disgrace to broadcasting) pretty much made me turn over to also bad but tolerable 3 news about 5 years ago.
Funny you named yourself ‘truekiwijoker’ you sound more like a whiney pussy or a woman imo 😉
TROLL